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Electric Affinity with basic IOs


Hedgefund

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8 hours ago, Coyote said:

I think, first of all, that I'm working with numbers from City of Data that show a CHANCE for -Recovery on powers like Jolting Chain, otherwise it would be easier, heh. I think that JC has a 50% or so chance for -Recovery... the in-game numbers don't show a "chance to", but I"m not sure that they're showing all of the data. If it really is 100% chance to occur, then I'm much more confident about hitting -1000% Recovery.

 

Second, I think that Shock has a 25 second duration, which is why I'm looking at that as the major source of -Recovery. That pushes it to about -800 RPS, and slotted it can get to over 1600, raising the rotation's average a lot. Galvanic Sentinel has a 10 second duration with a 5 second cycle time on its power, which has a -50% debuff, so it should stack to -100 unslotted, which is why I assumed about -200 from it.

 

The Gremlins are harder to check, because the Wayback machine didn't capture their power stats. I'm assuming that they're comparable to the equivalent attacks, which I think were Jolting Chain and Charged Brawl, and doing their rotation I think it was about 70% unslotted on the average (each). But unlike Shock and Galvanic Sentinel you want to slot them for damage, so most likely you can't slip in more than one End Mod IO plus probably Musculature Alpha to push them to about 100%. So that's another 200%, getting me to 400% from the pets. Though Galvanic Sentinel will require a small amount of resummoning.

 

I'd probably go with Mu as the Epic Pool to add another source of DPS with little animation time, and it will also help slightly with Recovery debuffing. But I'm less worried about sapping than I am about doing damage with a pretty low damage primary, a secondary that doesn't do much for damage and has no -Res or -Regen, and having to allocate attack time to spamming Shock. I like the character overall, but I think it will bounce off AV regen except in lucky cases. Or maybe if using Longbow as Core pets for -Regen, and that's a long time to wait... and not usable below level 45 in any case. I usually like all my characters to be able to solo AVs, not sure if this one will be up to it, though 😞

As I said, the numbers may be inaccurate in some place. However, two other powers I didn't think about compared to a 25 sec duration on Shock:

Lightning Storm 90 * 4 * 10 / 2.244 = 1604

Heat Exhaustion 200 * 40 / 2.244 = 3565 (unenhanceable)

Shock  75 * 25 / 2.244 = 836

 

You can check the Gremlins attacks with in-game info (I noted it above).

6 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Ninja/Electric/Field. Heals, Buffs, Protection, I mean, it fixes all these little guys darkest qualms in one tight-nit little bundle. If Electric Affinity is the ultimate support-focused set, and Ninjas are the most deprived pet class...]

What I discovered is that taking Ninjas from 'tissue paper' to 'slightly more durable tissue paper' didn't help much - especially as the melee-centric ninjas tend to run out of the bubble. Demons seems like a better overall choice.

 

Additional Note: I got back to the Beta server to test a new sapper build:;

Spoiler

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7

https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

Level 50 Magic Controller

Primary Power Set: Electric Control

Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning

Power Pool: Fighting

Power Pool: Force of Will

Power Pool: Leadership

Power Pool: Speed

Ancillary Pool: Primal Forces Mastery

 

Hero Profile:

Level 1: Tesla Cage

  • (A) Apocalypse - Damage: Level 50
  • (3) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance: Level 50
  • (3) Gladiator's Net - Chance of Damage(Lethal): Level 50
  • (5) Neuronic Shutdown - Chance of Damage(Psionic): Level 30
  • (5) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic): Level 50
  • (7) Unbreakable Constraint - Chance for Smashing Damage: Level 50

Level 1: Gale

  • (A) Empty

Level 2: Chain Fences

  • (A) Synapse's Shock - EndMod: Level 50
  • (7) Synapse's Shock - EndMod/Recharge: Level 50
  • (9) Synapse's Shock - Damage/Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50
  • (9) Power Transfer - EndMod: Level 50
  • (11) Power Transfer - Damage/Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50
  • (11) Power Transfer - Damage/EndMod: Level 50

Level 4: Kick

  • (A) Empty

Level 6: Jolting Chain

  • (A) Power Transfer - Damage/Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50
  • (15) Power Transfer - Damage/EndMod: Level 50
  • (17) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative): Level 50
  • (17) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic): Level 50
  • (19) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage: Level 20
  • (19) Power Transfer - EndMod: Level 50

Level 8: Conductive Aura

  • (A) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  • (21) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50

Level 10: Steamy Mist

  • (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed: Level 50
  • (21) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance: Level 50
  • (23) Red Fortune - Defense: Level 50
  • (23) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP: Level 50
  • (25) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance: Level 50
  • (25) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance: Level 50

Level 12: Weaken Resolve

  • (A) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff: Level 20

Level 14: Mighty Leap

  • (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points): Level 50

Level 16: Freezing Rain

  • (A) Ragnarok - Chance for Knockdown: Level 50
  • (27) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (27) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (29) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge: Level 50
  • (29) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance: Level 50

Level 18: Tough

  • (A) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance: Level 50
  • (31) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance: Level 50
  • (31) Titanium Coating - Resistance: Level 50

Level 20: Unleash Potential

  • (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed: Level 50
  • (31) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge: Level 50
  • (33) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50
  • (33) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge: Level 50
  • (50) Performance Shifter - EndMod: Level 50

Level 22: Weave

  • (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed: Level 50
  • (33) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All): Level 50
  • (34) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage: Level 50
  • (34) Kismet - Accuracy +6%: Level 30
  • (34) Reactive Defenses - Defense: Level 50
  • (36) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance: Level 50

Level 24: Maneuvers

  • (A) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance: Level 50
  • (36) Red Fortune - Defense: Level 50
  • (50) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed: Level 50

Level 26: Synaptic Overload

  • (A) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Confused/Hold/Immobilize/Sleep/Stun/Terrorized/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50
  • (36) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Confused/Hold/Immobilize/Sleep/Stun/Terrorized: Level 50
  • (37) Superior Will of the Controller - Confused/Hold/Immobilize/Sleep/Stun/Terrorized/Recharge: Level 50
  • (37) Superior Will of the Controller - Endurance/Recharge: Level 50
  • (37) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Confused/Hold/Immobilize/Sleep/Stun/Terrorized/Endurance: Level 50
  • (39) Coercive Persuasion  - Contagious Confusion: Level 50

Level 28: Tactics

  • (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up: Level 50
  • (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff: Level 50
  • (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance: Level 50

Level 30: Hasten

  • (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  • (40) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50

Level 32: Gremlins

  • (A) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50
  • (40) Expedient Reinforcement - Damage/Endurance: Level 50
  • (40) Expedient Reinforcement - Endurance/Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (42) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (42) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  • (42) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50

Level 35: Tornado

  • (A) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage: Level 50
  • (43) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (43) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up: Level 50
  • (43) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown: Level 50
  • (45) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge: Level 50

Level 38: Lightning Storm

  • (A) Superior Winter's Bite - Damage/RechargeTime: Level 50
  • (45) Apocalypse - Damage/Recharge: Level 50
  • (45) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Recharge: Level 50
  • (46) Power Transfer - EndMod: Level 50
  • (46) Power Transfer - Damage/EndMod: Level 50
  • (46) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge: Level 50

Level 41: Conserve Power

  • (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  • (50) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50

Level 44: Temp Invulnerability

  • (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All): Level 50
  • (48) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%: Level 30
  • (48) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance: Level 50
  • (48) Titanium Coating - Resistance: Level 50

Level 47: Power Boost

  • (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50

Level 49: O2 Boost

  • (A) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb: Level 50

Level 1: Sprint

  • (A) Celerity - +Stealth: Level 50

Level 2: Health

  • (A) Miracle - +Recovery: Level 40
  • (13) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance: Level 50
  • (13) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery: Level 50

Level 2: Stamina

  • (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod: Level 50
  • (15) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End: Level 50

Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon

 

 

This isn't a horrible general build, but it was primarily aimed at trying to sap as effectively as possible. I put no real effort in defenses, so it's relatively

 

Against standard spawns, it shuts them down in fairly short order. They lose all their endurance and can't do anything else while I kill them (which doesn't take all that long). It's not going to win any awards for AE fire farming (especially given that it's based around some long recharges without which life gets considerably more dangerous), but I suspect a slog through an +4/x8 wouldn't be impossible.

 

Against a pylon or Lusca, I could zero the end bar and pile on some massive -recovery very quickly. However, even with all that -recovery, there were still attacks coming through (I'm not sure of the significance, but it appears Lusca stopped using 'Ink' and was just using a basic melee attack every 10 secs). At this point, I think it's safe to eliminate any fragile pet-based sapping (such as from Gremlins or Galvanic Sentinel) from consideration because they just die too quickly (this was true even with Faraday Cage).

 

There are probably ways to tweak this to be better or other builds that are comparable. But I'd consider this pretty close to the limit of what can be done with the concept of sapping.

 

Power Boosted Heat Exhaustion might be even better, but I'm not sure if Power Boost affects Heat Exhaustion.

 

Edited by Hjarki
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On 3/31/2020 at 3:20 PM, Cutter said:

Just hopping on the new set bandwagon, haven't followed any of the beta testing. Couple quick Qs if I may:

Based on this, aside from thematic choice is Elec/Elec not really viable? As in, this set really doesn't do much to elevate Elec Blast? If that's the case, are there any sets that Elec Aff does work particularly well with?

Is it worth it to slot the Guassian's and/or Rectified procs?

Yes, I slotted the Guassian’s and if I have enough static and am surrounded by enough teammates, it goes off very frequently.

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On 3/31/2020 at 4:55 PM, Hjarki said:

The key features of Electric Affinity are the recharge/endurance and the bubble/self-heals. As long as you've got an active pet, you can take an enormous beating - I didn't try solo'ing Liberty or anything with it, but it's very hard to kill.

 

But neither Electric Affinity nor Electric Blast/Control make endurance drain practical.

 

I do think that a good place to start looking for synergies is with relatively long recharge PBAoE since the combination of recharge + bubble makes them more practical. I did do an Elec/Elec/Soul build to exploit Soul Drain + Power Boost (Power Boost allows both Thunderous Blast and Short Circuit to zero end bars). However, while the bubble is very good, it's unlikely you'll be hard-capping resists except S/L and it does nothing for defenses.

 

Rectified Recticle isn't really worthwhile outside of PvP, unless you want the S/L def bonuses. Gaussian's appears to act in a manner similar to Tactics - the chance to proc is increased by the number of targets. However, from my admitted brief testing, I believe you have to be in the Empowering Circuit yourself to get the buff (if you're only buffing others, it doesn't seem to proc). Also, because Empowering Circuit can only usefully be activated once per minute, you're almost certainly going to get performance directly inferior to Tactics.

I find that I can get it to proc quite frequently with enough stacks of static and teammates to chain to nearby. Since it’s affected by how many you get in the chain, it can go off about 60-70% of the time. And it’s on demand. So it essentially turns Empowering Circuit into a chained teammate +to-hit/+damage buff and a pseudo build up for yourself on a less than 10 second timer! 

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I've just got low level elec/elec experience (mostly Hollows teams) but I'm finding the drain aspect to be a bunch like what I found with an elec dominator - it does nothing in short/easy fights, but in long/difficult encounters you get to where enemies hover around empty and attack much less often.  I also did a little Kings Row soloing against those Skrull EBs, and always ended up with an empty EB mostly standing around.

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30 minutes ago, MrSnottyPants said:

I've just got low level elec/elec experience (mostly Hollows teams) but I'm finding the drain aspect to be a bunch like what I found with an elec dominator - it does nothing in short/easy fights, but in long/difficult encounters you get to where enemies hover around empty and attack much less often.  I also did a little Kings Row soloing against those Skrull EBs, and always ended up with an empty EB mostly standing around.

That's a very good way of thinking about the benefits/advantages of sapping endurance from $Targets.  Not all that useful immediately, but definitely shows its value when it takes longer than a sneeze to defeat them (and the longer the better).

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1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

That's a very good way of thinking about the benefits/advantages of sapping endurance from $Targets.  Not all that useful immediately, but definitely shows its value when it takes longer than a sneeze to defeat them (and the longer the better).

In my experiments, I found that there were builds that only needed a short time (5 - 6 second time frame) to completely shut down essentially any large spawn (targets with no meaningful resistance to what you're doing) and keep them floored indefinitely. As I noted above, the best way to accomplish this wasn't Electric Affinity (which only has the long recharge Defibrillate), but Electric Control. Once floored, the minions/lt/bosses I tested on simply stopped attacking - it was effectively a disorient you could maintain forever (and since a key component of this strategy was an AE Immobilize power, it might as well be a Hold). This was particularly effective in conjunction with Power Boost, since you can easily drop its recharge into once-per-battle territory and it boosted both the speed at which you could zero a spawn and your defenses while engaging the spawn.

 

Against AV/GM, it's a different story. There, it's more about -resist debuffing. The obvious tactic of going Elec/Elec and stacking end drain on top of end drain is actually far less effective than taking the best end drain you can find and pairing it with the best -resist you can find. It's more valuable to multiply a very good end drain power by a very good -resist power than it is to add a very good end drain power to a mediocre end drain power. However, the problem Electric Affinity has is that the best -resist you can find are all in (other) support sets while Shock isn't actually much better than other options for 'best end drain'. One of the consequences of this is that neither Electric Affinity nor Electric Blast tend to be particularly good at end drain.

 

It's also worth mentioning that AV/GM seem to have zero end 'brawl' attacks that never get shut off and some of them have environmental effects which are independent of their endurance bar. So while you can potentially reduce their damage output, your ability to do so is going to be dependent on the specific AV/GM.

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25 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

One of the consequences of this is that neither Electric Affinity nor Electric Blast tend to be particularly good at end drain.

Solo.

In a team with debuffers working over the $Target, it's a different story.

 

Synergize, synergize, synergize ...

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44 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

Solo.

In a team with debuffers working over the $Target, it's a different story.

 

Synergize, synergize, synergize ...

The issue is that neither Electric Blast nor Electric Affinity is particularly good at draining endurance/recovery.

 

Electric Blast's single target end drain is mediocre. It's AE end drain is better, but still involves recharges too long to lockdown a spawn indefinitely. Moreover, if you are going this route, Sentinels have a significantly better version of the set (for end drain purposes).

 

Electric Affinity is better at end drain, but it's still nothing special. It's certainly not a set I'd choose for a 'sapping' build, despite the name and initial appearance of the set.

 

If you want to use end drain as a core concept, I'd recommend Electric/Poison, Electric/Storm or Electric/Thermal Controller. They're all noticeably better at end drain.

 

Remember end drain is an all-or-nothing strategy. If you're not emptying an end bar and keeping it floored rapidly, you might as well not even bother. If your entire strategy is predicated on "I hope I'm grouped with someone who can actually make my build useful", then your strategy is flawed.

 

Note: I originally wrote Electric/Pain. I meant Electric/Poison (corrected above).

Edited by Hjarki
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2 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

Remember end drain is an all-or-nothing strategy. If you're not emptying an end bar and keeping it floored rapidly, you might as well not even bother. If your entire strategy is predicated on "I hope I'm grouped with someone who can actually make my build useful", then your strategy is flawed.

Granted.

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Quote

Remember end drain is an all-or-nothing strategy. If you're not emptying an end bar and keeping it floored rapidly, you might as well not even bother.

I don't quite agree.  In my experience with longer fights, you drop them to empty often enough that you delay their attacks - they need to wait for endurance.  Sometimes you can hit them again and delay them some more.  It's like a back-loaded recharge debuff.

 

I was teaming in the Hollows again.  The tank remarked how often trolls were just standing around, out of gas and doing nothing.

Edited by MrSnottyPants
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I decided to try leveling an Electric Affinity/Electrical Blast Defender up this weekend.  Currently I'm at level 35, which I achieved with a combination of task forces, radios, mission content and an MSR.  Mostly , because I wanted to gain a feel for how the set performed as it worked it's way up the level ladder.  Also, per the original post I'm only using non-set IO's at this point (see below): 

 

Electric_Affinity_Screenshot.thumb.jpg.c41d44d30a88b9bb99d96d19f564d946.jpg

 

Team Performance:

 

Electric Affinity (EA) performed very well on teams as far as I'm concerned.  The set is like Kinetics + Sonic had a beautiful sturdy buffing  baby.  Energizing Circuit + Rejuvenating Circuit works very well with team mates. The heal chained frequently and building stacks of static was never a problem. The bigger the team and more bodies (including pets) the better.  Amp Up is fun to spam on Controllers and Faraday cage at this level gives about 23% resistance to all but toxic. 

 

 

Solo Performance:

 

Things are little rough for the solo EA Defender in my opinion.  The damage is low and the heal requires a teammate or pet to use well.  Galvanic Sentinel isn't a permanent pet and can de-spawn in the middle of a fight.  Additionally, the pet has low hit-points and easily killed by even low level mobs. However, it's pretty easy to resummon GAL, as the pet is necessary in order to keep yourself buffed.  For these reasons, I found using a pet targeting key bind helpful while solo.  The simple key binds below should target the nearest friendly entity (player or pet) and then trigger the named power.  

 

Quote

/bind numpad1 "target_friend_near$$powexec_name Rejuvenating Circuit"

/bind numpad2 "target_friend_near$$powexec_name Energizing Circuit"

 

 

Faraday Cage is Awesome

 

Despite some of the drawbacks, Electric Affinity has the makings of a very sturdy defender.  Faraday cage not only offers excellent damage resistance,  mez protection, and knock back resist. It also offers protection from endurance drains, recharge debuffs, and recovery debuffs.  Faraday Cage also functions as break free on the rare occasions you may happen to get mezzed. Additionally, it stacks with Tough.... which on a Defender is a fantastic amount of Smashing & Lethal resist under level 50. This is great solo or teamed.  I'm strongly considering stacking Faraday Cage + Tough + Dark Embrace to grant my Defender a decent amount of resistance to just about every type of damage. 

 

Other Notes

 

Energizing Circuit is worth slotting in my opinion at low levels.  Super maxed out incarnate teams may not need it, but if you're on a team with sub 50+ players they will thank you for it.  Galvanic Sentinel, Short Circuit, and Defibrillate were enough to end drain mobs. This is nice at lower levels or while solo when kill speed isn't as fast.  Speaking of Defibrillate, it's a very handy power I honestly wouldn't skip it.  Not only does end drain mobs, it also sleeps them with the added benefit of rezzing nearby teammates at full health and endurance. It's like Howling Twilight's spunky little brother.  This is a fun set to play, it might work a little more smoothly on AT's with sturdier pets (i.e masterminds & certain controllers), but it's solid on a defender. 

Edited by tjknight
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